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Your Essential Science Fiction ListJoin LibraryThing to post. 1VisibleGhostEdited: Aug 6, 2008, 10:00am 
Since lists seem to come up regularly in this forum here's your chance to make your own. What 25 books goes on your list? They can be from any year, language, series, and from any criteria you want to use. Influence on the field, writing style, laden with ideas, satirical, polemics, or anything else. You can rank them in order or leave them unranked. Why 25? It's arbitrary. Ten seemed restricting and 100 seemed like a lot of work. 25 is large enough to get off the beaten path if you want to. There will never be a single definition of SF so include the genre expanding stuff if you want. Even if it comes from Mainstream. Sub-genre as much as you want. * Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon * Brave New World, Aldous Huxley * The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin * Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler* A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller Jr. * Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson * Dune, Frank Herbert* Hyperion, Dan Simmons * Red Mars, Kin Stanley Robinson * The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester * Starfish, Peter Watts* Carlucci, Richard Paul Russo* Viriconium, M. John Harrison* Scar, China Mieville * The Road, Cormac McCarthy * The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas * Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell* Tales of the Dying Earth, Jack Vance* Dahlgren, Samuel Delany* Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke * Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks* The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem * Evolution, Stephen Baxter* Engine Summer, John Crowley* A Fire upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge 2iansalesEdited: Aug 6, 2008, 5:24am
In no particular order... 1 The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester 2 Dune, Frank Herbert 3 Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland 4 Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson 5 Use of Weapons, Iain Banks 6 Life During Wartime, Lucius Shepard 7 The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter 8 Life, Gwyneth Jones 9 Somewhere East of Life, Brian W. Aldiss 10 The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman 11 Metrophage, Richard Kadrey12 Coelestis, Paul Park13 Light, M. John Harrison14 Hyperion, Dan Simmons 15 A Case of Conscience, James Blish16 The Ophiuchi Hotline, John Varley17 Dahlgren, Samuel R. Delany 18 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke 19 Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle20 Fairyland, Paul J. McAuley21 Chekhov's Journey, Ian Watson23 Pavane, Keith Roberts 24 A Time of Changes, Robert Silverberg 25 The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe 4iansalesAug 5, 2008, 10:25am
Someone should tally the mentions of titles up. For example, Dune is three out of three so far. 5koalamomAug 5, 2008, 10:37am
Like the Dune series, just finished Hunters of Dune
Essential - anything Heinlein - I don't think I missed anything there
Like to keep up with the Star Wars and some of the Star Trek series
Do I need to get more specific?
Have read a bit of Robert Silverberg.
Has anyone tried David Sakmyster? He's new, but has written a couple of great things. 7andylAug 5, 2008, 10:58am
#6
I like short stories and I think we should do a separate thread for suggesting our favourite shorter stories. For example I did not consider Blood Music or Flowers For Algernon because I thought both were better at their original lengths. 9iansalesAug 5, 2008, 11:21am
There are a few other fantasies in there too - Kelly Link, Deep Wizardry (I'm guessing from the title), Sandman... Um, not sure if you'd class His Dark Materials as sf or fantasy. It's normally seen as the latter, but is it that?
well..the paragraph defining the criteria was so open ended that i felt OK about sliding a few books that were mostly fantasy but had SF touches.. Deep Wizardry is actually a pretty good mix of genres (rather like the much earlier Wrinkle in Time); the Kelly Link IS the most problematic - but it's the island where i'm going to be stranded, after all. His Dark Materials (among many other attributes) is an excellent alternative history/technology set. There are certainly elements of the fantastic but I'd place it quite firmly in SF. ---------- "There will never be a single definition of SF so include the genre expanding stuff if you want. Even if it comes from Mainstream. Sub-genre as much as you want."
Interesting how the lists are very similar. There are several names cropping up on each one - and they're not the GOM you'd expect. 13andylAug 5, 2008, 1:00pm
It is interesting when you read other people's lists how many of the books you had considered but put just below the top-25. I think 7 or 8 of arthur's list nearly made mine. 15Jim53Aug 5, 2008, 1:53pm
Some of these are just fun reads. I haven't tried to include "classics" or focus on "significance."
The Book of the New Sun
The Left Hand of Darkness
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Dune
The Stars My Destination
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Fool's Run
City
Old Man's War
Speaker for the Dead
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Woman on the Edge of Time
The Dispossessed
Hyperion
The Foundation Trilogy
Childhood's End
The Man in the High Castle
Beggars in Spain
Good News from Outer Space
Out of the Silent Planet
Slan
Slaughterhouse Five
We
Neuromancer
Fool's War
i've always been somewhat, if not productively, obsessive..I went off to college w/ my couple of hundred lps rank ordered...somehow, later on, after my collection had increased markedly after managing the bandbox record store in Williamsburg, i'd decided that the Joy of Cooking's 1st lp was #23 all time. I have NO idea how i came to that conclusion..imagine i just pulled all my lps out of their VERY rough category/alpha order and replaced them in "merit" order.
On my list, i agree it's towards the end that i went ...oh fk...in my case because i'd taken my SF books, put them in alpha order by author's last name. Probably should have just done it by title order...if people don't mind, if a few more lists get created i might do some statistical clustering analysis and see if anything interesting falls out. That initial list of 100 that Richard posted looks to be ordered by publication date? so i'll pull the a random selection of 25 off that one too.
100 would be easier, but here's a quick cull to get to there :
Adams, Douglas - Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy,The
Gibson, William - Neuromancer
Herbert, Frank - Dune
May, Julian - Many-Coloured Land,The
Morgan, Richard - Altered Carbon
Orwell, George - 1984
Reynolds, Alastair - Revelation Space
Robinson, Kim Stanley - Red Mars
Simmons, Dan - Hyperion Cantos
Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash
Asimov, Isaac - The Hugo Winners
Dozois, Gardner and Jonathan Strahan - New Space Opera,The
Dozois, Gardner - Good New Stuff,The
Dozois, Gardner - Good Old Stuff,The
Dozois, Gardner - Year's Best Science Fiction, The
Farmer, Philip Jose - Tarzan Alive
Hartwell, David G. and Kathryn Cramer - Hard SF Renaissance,The
Martin, George R. R. - Wild Cards
Doctorow, Cory - Overclocked
Dowling, Terry - Rynosseros
Egan, Greg - Axiomatic
Haldeman, Joe - Forever War,The
Moore, C. L. - Shambleau
Smith, Cordwainer - Rediscovery Of Man,The
Stross, Charles - Accelerando
Brackett, Leigh - Eric John Stark Saga,The
Farmer, Philip Jose - Tarzan Alive ????
That was fiction!?!?!?!
Isn't it, well, cheating to include series as one book? The Book of the New Sun is a single book split into four for publication. But Hyperion and it sequels can't be considered like that.
Is there unlikable science fiction? Heinlein had a few corkers but I still read them. Science fiction/fantasy gives one a place to get away from it all - far away!!!!
Unlikeable science fiction? Certainly there's some. Plenty, in fact. 99% of military sf, for example. 23andylAug 6, 2008, 9:09am
Yes I was cheating a bit Ian.
Consider your wrist slapped, then.
Oh, and don't do it again.
#17- I forgot Flatland. I even have The Annotated Flatland with introduction and notes by Ian Stewart. I wonder if Flatland has ever gone out of print since it came out in 1884. 27CliffBurnsEdited: Aug 6, 2008, 10:08am
Lists, lists, lists. Okay, I'll bite:
1984 (George Orwell)
TOWING JEHOVAH (James Morrow)
EXCESSION
CONSIDER PHLEBAS (Iain Banks)
BUG JACK BARRON (Norman Spinrad)
GRAY MATTERS (William Hjortsberg)
CHILDHOOD'S END (Arthur C. Clarke)
STEEL BEACH (John Varley)
UBIK
A SCANNER DARKLY
DO ANDROIDS DREAM... (Philip K. Dick)
NEUROMANCER (William Gibson)
CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT (William S. Burroughs)
GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN
MARTIAN CHRONICLES (Ray Bradbury)
BEST SHORT STORIES OF J.G. BALLARD (J.G. Ballard)
DUNE (Frank Herbert)
FOREVER WAR (Joe Haldeman)
IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS (Paul Auster)
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE (Kurt Vonnegut)
CITIZEN IN SPACE (Robert Sheckley)
SNOWCRASH (Neal Stephenson)
CIRCUIT OF HEAVEN (Dennis Danvers)
20 Hyperion Cantos is one book, actually. You can slap your own wrist. Might be two novels, but is certainly one book. :)
Ah. I was thinking of all four books. 30arthurfraynEdited: Aug 6, 2008, 11:13am
20>But Hyperion and it sequels can't be considered like that. I'd agree only with reference to the Endymion books, but upon reflection Fall of the Hyperion no longer feels like a separate entity to me, and I've ceased to regard it as such. Hyperion just feels like a giant prologue to me. It does not thematically resolve at the end.I went right into reading Fall of Hyperion and that felt completely right. Interesting though, Rise of Endymion has a very different character than Endymion and they feel like two separate novels. And they are certainly a separate train of thought from the first two books. And I read them right after the other two -read them all back to back.
Funny, I liked the first HYPERION book and not the others (gave up halfway through #3). The narratives of the travelers, very CANTERBURY TALES-ish...
i kind of agree w/ Cliff in re the Hyperion sequence. I liked the first book a lot, got through the second and didn't finish the others. So i'd rather think of them, in my mind, as stand alones - independently, i'm sure, of Simmons' intent.
31>"Funny, I liked the first HYPERION book and not the others (gave up halfway through #3). The narratives of the travelers, very CANTERBURY TALES-ish..." *in Best Don Adams voice* "Ah yes the old Canterbury Tales motif trick" I had read about this as a structure for the novel frequently, before I read the novel. I read The Canterbury Tales and about halfway through Hyperion, I'm thinking, "OK, but what's the point? And I don't see any thematic point. What I see is a structure that enables him to give an overview to the Hegemony from many different points of view. And that's why I view the first novel merely as a prologue, because it doesn't stand on it's own, and Fall of the Hyperion could never been executed without having all the world building that went on in the first book. The Endymion saga is a completely different kettle of fish- more intellectually challenging, and unfortunately more long winded. There's some real need for editing in Rise of Endymion. But there's also some really great stuff in that book.
maybe if we comment on the need for editing often enough, someone, somewhere @ some publisher's in a universe hopefully not far from here will notice. I just spudded out on a 700 pg book that had a nice concept, good characters and setting and so much redundancy and flab that i stopped being interested. It's a shame because i think it was the author's first book and had it been edited down to 450-475 pgs it would've been excellent ( The court of the air) . Neal Stephenson, as mentioned before, has gotten totally out of control; Dan Simmons has severe editing problems; Neil Gaiman (though he's fantasy) needs honing. There's an epidemic that needs stopping. This might, in part, explain the success of graphic novels. Many good books like Rucka's Whiteout are very taut. The more meandering, but excellent, Sandman series has tons of ideas, but being intially published as straight comics, most of the individual stories are quite tightly constructed. (I think that Rucka's Queen and Country books and comics, work MUCH better as comics than as novels).
Yeah, it is kind of weird. For the wealthy authors I guess they don't care, but for other authors can't be a good deal.
Sure, I'd really love to write twice as much for you, for exactly the same money....?
Re: editing...a thing I know a bit about, having done it for quite a few clients at the literary agency and for Riverrun back in the day...it's a lot harder to edit a book than acquire one. Most editors have to be ssalespeople in-house first, and really don't do much line-by-line editing of books they acquire and sell. Time militates against them, fewer editors doing more books per list means nothing good for the way the books get edited; and then there is the dearth of training for editors, really it's a journeyman system and there are not that many masters left; they're not training editors to edit, these masters, because most of them don't know HOW they do it, they just DO it. Tom McCormack, former CEO of St. Martin's Press, saw this problem 20+ years ago and wrote a book called The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist. I have copies of the first and second editions. He's the only editor whose book on editing I feel can be recommended to non-English majors. It's a daunting task, editing someone's book; and a lot of the results depend on the chemistry between author and editor. I would make no effort whatever to edit the book of a person I disliked, because I know it would be a disaster for both of us. I know from experience that editing the book of someone that one *likes* can lead to the end of a friendship. So while I completely agree that (e.g.) Mr, Stephenson would benefit from an editor with the intellectual and emotional horsepower to rein him in from his longer flights of fancy, I can't come up with a person active in editing today (and my field of knowledge is admittedly quite a lot smaller than the set of the whole) who could do the job. Add in the ease of self-publishing in today's world, and good gravy the hideousness of the picture becomes quite disheartening. It's always painful to be criticized, and when it's a lobor of love (as any book truly is) it is even more painful; but one thing I stress when I offer advice to writers is, "There is a difference between critique, which is intended to help something become even better than it is, and criticism, which is intended to help the critic feel better about his/er superior knowledge/taste/breeding." Most authors hear all words intended in the former spirit as if they're intended in the latter, and it's down to the editor's skills, tact, and the chemistry between the two people, to get past that natural, normal, and inevitable hump. Not, of course, that anyone asked me; I simply feel this situation is a crisis, and one that gets little attention to solving it since no one seems able to figure out HOW to! >37 bluetyson, the famous apercu on that topic was when Famous Author gave Famous Editor an article for a magazine. "Wow, what a lot of pages," said Famous Editor. "Had I but more time," said Famous Author, "I could have made it shorter." No one can agree on exactly who said these things to whom. The gist is correct. Long is easy, short is wicked hard, assuming each is equally good.
38>"Tom McCormack, former CEO of St. Martin's Press, saw this problem 20+ years ago and wrote a book called The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist."
Hey, that sounds like it might be an interesting read. Thanks for the heads up!
No prob, arthur...glad to be of service. NOW. Have all of y'all heard of and been to SF Signal ? I don't know how I missed this until today, five days after it appeared, but I reproduce here a post from 8/1: What are the Essential SF Books of the Last 20 Years? An upcoming WorldCon Panel called 20 Essential SF books of the Past 20 Years caught my eye because it sounded like an attention-grabbing post title. And it got me wondering...What are the essential sf books since 1988? I suppose it depends on the definition of "essential". One definition could be those that won the major awards. It certainly seems common that those who want to read up on science fiction use award winners as their guide. So I went to Locus Online's awesome award reference, and pulled out all the novel winners of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus (SF), and British (SF) awards to use as an initial suggestion pool. (I also ignored strict genre definitions and included books that some might consider fantasy. If you catch me, you can flog me.) So, given the following list of suggestions, which of these would you consider Essential Science Fiction? Which ones published in the last 20 years would you add to this list? Feel free to use your own definition of "Essential"! Huge, ginourmous list of sf books, sorted by title, follows the jump... {UPDATE: A reiteration folks... This isn't a list of books I consider essential, it's a starter list "to use as an initial suggestion pool".And by all means, use your own definition of essential. This list was generated from one possible definition.} A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge Air by Geoff Ryman American Gods by Neil Gaiman Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle Aztec Century by Christopher Evans Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Camouflage by Joe Haldeman Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear Doomsday Book by Connie Willis End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood Excession by Iain M. Banks Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks Felaheen: The Third Arabesk by Jon Courtenay Grimwood Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer Hyperion by Dan Simmons Ilium by Dan Simmons Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold Moving Mars by Greg Bear Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler Passage by Connie Willis Pyramids by Terry Pratchett Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson River of Gods by Ian McDonald Seeker by Jack McDevitt Slow River by Nicola Griffith Spin by Robert Charles Wilson Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin The Baroque Cycle: The Confusion; The System of the World by Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson The Extremes by Christopher Priest The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre The Quantum Rose by Catherine Asaro The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons The Separation by Christopher Priest The Sky Road by Ken MacLeod The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
I gave up touchstoning the list because every time I tried to go past a certain point in the list, I would be whooshed up to the top and kept there. A minor annoyance, but one that caused me to awaken my bedmate with shouted imprecations. And I flat refuse to edit touchstoned lists because I don't want to RE-do the touchstones I've already corrected.
Gahhh! Blood pressure rising!
38
Although that would mean then that lots of writers today are only 50-60% as good as those of 30-40 years ago, if short is hard. :)
> 36, 37, 38 - the current vogue is for fat novels - readers apparently prefer them, and publishers like them because they take up more shelf space (and so are easier to spot). UK publishers won't look at a genre novel under 120,000 words now. I know this because I have the same agent as Stephen Hunt ( The court of the Air), and he tells me as much every time I see him. The king of padding was, I always thought, Clive Barker. Reading his novels was always a battle to get the story out of all the surrounding verbiage.
Editing is an obsession of mine so, obviously, this discussion re: how fat books are getting, the over-writing, is a real bugbear.
To me, it's the AUTHOR who's responsible for 99.99% of the editing and if he/she does their job, the editor should only be required for proof-reading and spell-checking. The problem is, many writers aren't willing to spend 2 or three years on a novel, their lack of discipline and TV-corrupted attention spans make that almost impossible. They turn in shabby manuscripts and rely on editors to bail them out (or, if they're name authors, print the mess as is).
Editing is difficult, repetitive, mind-numbing work, grinding and grinding away at a paragraph until it sings...and then going on to the next...and the next...
The biggest problem with many if not most books (not just SF but the problem is definitely systemic in our field), is that they are glorified short stories or novellas that have been padded out to three hundred pages. And, of course, the fantasy people then further exacerbate the situation by extending that paltry idea over a series of ten fucking books.
Y'see what I mean? Get me going on editing and I'll start ranting and we'll be here all day...
I've seen far too many manuscripts by wannabe fantasy writers which open with a history lesson disguised as a prologue. And then meander through a couple of chapters before the story even begins. I tell them: "NO PROLOGUES!", "NO HISTORY LESSONS!"
It isn't just just novels that are suffering from being too long; think of how many films in the last few years have been overlong. Everything seems to afflicted by a supermarket mentality - get 50% extra free. That's fine when it's peanut butter but not so good when a 300p novel ends up 450p long.
When writers like Bujold, Willis and Sawyer are considered to be major sf writers then I would dispute that writers of today are even 50-60% as good as the major sf writers of 30-40 years ago.
I agree that the author ought to do most of the editing; i gave up attempting to fulfill UNC's university press' request that i turn my phud into a book when i came to the realization that no matter how hard i tried I couldn't write attractively for beans. If i ever might have been able to, the process of obtaining 4 graduate degrees certainly killed any possibility thereafter!. If I couldn't turn some interesting information into something that was also interesting to read, well, that was my problem and shouldn't be inflicted on university libraries around the country (the only audience i could imagine for the proposed book).
But they aren't consider major writers.
Of all the readers of sf, there is a tiny minority who nominate works for the Hugo. The rocket is given to their favourite. The Hugo stopped being about "best" anything decades ago. Actually, it probably never was "best". 49CliffBurnsEdited: Aug 7, 2008, 11:38am
Movies overlong? Christ, yes! The Bond flicks should clock in at 90 minutes tops and instead they're often over 2 hours. Ridiculous--and they have more fake climaxes than Jenna Jameson...
Ian: Bujold, Sawyer and Willis aren't considered major writers????
I personally don't think much of them (I suspect you don't either) but I would suppose the vast majority of SFdom either holds them in good regard or (at least) recognize their names. They certainly seem to make good coin at what they do... 51arthurfraynEdited: Aug 7, 2008, 12:03pm
46> Everything seems to afflicted by a supermarket mentality - get 50% extra free. That's fine when it's peanut butter but not so good when a 300p novel ends up 450p long.
I think there's something to this. At one time the increased length could be attributed to the shift by writers to using a word processor as opposed to a typewriter or long hand. Now it definitely seems to have something to do with a "supersize me" frame of mind. And you've seen it in magazines and ads -copy like -"lie down at the pool this summer with a cool drink and a big, fat book" -like the thing is a sandwhich from Aarby's.
49>Movies overlong? Christ, yes! The Bond flicks should clock in at 90 minutes tops and instead they're often over 2 hours. Ridiculous--and they have more fake climaxes than Jenna Jameson...
I'm pretty sure the majority of the Bond flicks have been over two hours long. I don't think there was ever a Bond film that clocked in under 110 minutes. I don't think there ever was a 90 minute Bond film, even in the Roger Moore days. That's kind of a signature thing about the Bond films.
48>
Of all the readers of sf, there is a tiny minority who nominate works for the Hugo. The rocket is given to their favourite. The Hugo stopped being about "best" anything decades ago. Actually, it probably never was "best".
Truly, in the entertainment industry, is there any award that is really about "best"?
52andylAug 7, 2008, 12:06pm
Connie Willis hasn't published a major novel since 2001. Personally her forte is with short stories.
Bujold and Sawyer have fans, but I don't see many people saying that they are great writers. Name recognition is a not necessarily the same thing as being considered a major writer. 53iansalesEdited: Aug 7, 2008, 12:26pm
Willis wrote a couple of well-regarded stories - 'All My Darling Daughters', for example - and one or two well-regarded novels - like Doomsday Book. But for the last few years, it's been nothing but bloody twee Christmas stories. Like the one on this year's Hugo ballot. Is that what people think is really the best of 2007? It may have aliens in it, but it's not what you'd call sf. Bujold has written - and is still writing - a long-running soap opera/military sf series. It has many fans. It's fluff. It has all the genre importance of cottage cheese. Sawyer writes, so I have been told, entirely workmanlike novels. He's like Stephen Baxter, but without the talent. Or the mind-expanding ideas.
Andy: Ian used the term "major" writer not "great" writer. None of the names cited are great but I was arguing they ARE major to those who read SF.
Arthur, I stand corrected, even the early Bond were quite lengthy: "Goldfinger" something like 108 minutes and "Dr. NO" 111 minutes.
But they SHOULD be only 90 minutes...
No, see, that's what I'm saying. The length was part of the whole Bond thing. At the time the films were very unusual for their length considering they were action films.
As far as I'm concerned, don't touch a frame of "Goldfinger" or "From Russia With Love"!
>55 arthur, The length was part of the whole Bond thing.
I laughed for a good five minutes over that unintended double entendre.
Major, great, popular, whatever labels one assigns to writers...we don't know which (if any) works we read and debate about today will be known at all in 100 years. Opinions are like nostrils...everybody got one or two, nobody really wants to look too closely at anyone else's unless forced or just flat weird.
So what if I like what I call space opera and iansales calls military SF (the distinction is hazy to me, and frankly not very interesting to debate) and he does not? Can we discuss the book in question, on its unique relative merits to each of us, and not categorize the author/the work/the publisher/the editor into tidy little pigeonholes?
SF as a field of activity feels to me like a medieval monastery staffed by Scholasticists, counting angels on pinheads. It's been that way for a long time. It can get stifling.
56>Yeah, well we were talking about eels and snails in the other thread, so I guess getting hit with a double entendre tag was going to come from somewhere. I was in the air. 58rojseAug 8, 2008, 4:45am
#56
Space Opera is set in an expansive galaxy of peopled worlds, while Military SF is about war and SF. Although there is some overlap (huge galaxy of worlds and a war story), there are plenty of military fiction books that are not battles between multiple worlds.
Yes, I thought the "military" in military sf was a big clue... 60rojseAug 8, 2008, 6:38am
Had a bit of spare time (alright, a lot), and done this:
Multiple Favourites:
(8) Dune – Frank Herbert
(6) Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
(5) Forever War – Joe Haldeman
(4) Book Of The New Sun – Gene Wolfe
(4) Canticle for Leibowitz, A – Walter M Miller Jr
(4) Case Of Conscience, A – James Blish
(4) Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion Fall of Hyperion) – Dan Simmons
(4) Mars Trilogy (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) – Kim Stanley Robinson
(4) Stars My Destination, The – Alfred Bester
(4) Ubik – Philip K. Dick
(3) Fire Upon The Deep, A – Vernor Vinge
(3) Left Hand of Darkness, The – Ursula Le Guin
(3) Man in the High Castle, The – Philip K. Dick
(3) Neuromancer – William Gibson
(3) Pavane – Keith Roberts
(3) Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
(3) Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
(3) Use Of Weapons – Iain M Banks
(2) 1984 – George Orwell
(2) Accelerando – Charles Stross
(2) Camp Concentration – Thomas M. Disch
(2) City – Clifford D Simak
(2) Consider Phlebas – Iain Banks
(2) Dahlgren – Samuel R. Delany
(2) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
(2) Fairyland – Paul McAuley
(2) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The – Douglas Adams
(2) Malevil – Robert Merle
(2) Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The – Robert A. Heinlein
(2) Out of the Silent Planet – CS Lewis
(2) Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
(2) Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
61rojseEdited: Aug 8, 2008, 6:40am
Every book that has been nominated once:
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
All the Myriad Ways – Larry Niven
Altered Carbon – Morgan, Richard
As She Climbed Across the Table – Jonathan Lethem
Ash: A Secret History – Mary Gentle
At the Earths Core – Edgar Rice Burroughs
At the Mountains of Madness – HP Lovecraft
Axiomatic – Egan, Greg
Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
Baroque Cycle, The – Neal Stephenson
Beggars and Choosers – Nancy Kress
Beggars in Spain – Nancy Kress
Berserker – Fred Saberhagen
Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard – J.G. Ballard
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon – Frederik Pohl
Big Planet – Jack Vance
Brain Wave – Poul Anderson
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Bug Jack Barron – Norman Spinrad
Calcutta Chromosome, The – Amitav Ghosh
Callahan's Secret – Spider Robinson
Carlucci – Richard Paul Russo
Chekhov's Journey – Ian Watson
The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman
Circuit of Heaven – Dennis Danvers
Cities of the Red Night – William S. Burroughs
City and the Stars, The – Arthur C. Clarke
City of the Sun, The – Brian Stabelford
Citizen In Space – Robert Sheckley
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Coelestis – Paul Park
Cradle of Splendor – Patricia Anthony
Crescent City Rhapsody – Kathleen Ann Goonan
Cyberiad, The – Stanislaw Lem
Cyteen – CJ Cherryh
Dawn – Octavia Butler
Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham
Declare – Tim Powers
Deep Wizardry – Diane Duane
Demolished Man, The – Alfred Bester
Dispossessed, The – Ursula LeGuin
Dream Of Wessex, A – Christopher Priest
Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
Earth Abides, The – George R Stewart
Earthsea Trilogy, The – Urusla K. LeGuin
End of Mr Y, The – Scarlett Thomas
Engine Summer – John Crowley
Eric John Stark Saga, The – Brackett, Leigh
Evolution – Stephen Baxter
Excession – Iain Banks
Federation – H Beam Piper
Farnhams Freehold – Robert Heinlein
Fallen Dragon – Peter F. Hamilton
Fifth Head of Cerberus, The – Gene Wolfe
Flatland: A romance of Many Dimensions – Edwin A. Abbott
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Fool's Run – ????
Fool's War – ????
Forerunner Foray – Andre Norton
The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem
Foundation Trilogy – Issac Assimov
Gateway – Frederik Pohl
Godwhale, The – T.J. Bass
Going, Going, Gone – Jack Womack
Golden Apples of the Sun – Ray Bradbury
Golden Nineties, The – Lisa Mason
Good New Stuff, The – Gardner Dozois
Good News from Outer Space – John Kessell
Good Old Stuff, The – Gardner Dozois
The Graveyard Game (The Company), Kage Baker
Gray Matters – William Hjortsberg
Hard SF Renaissance, The – David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Helliconia trilogy – Brian Aldiss
High Crusade, The – Poul Anderson
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Phillip Pullman
Hugo Winners, The – Isaac Asimov
I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
I, Robot – Issac Asimov
Ilium – Dan Simmons
In The Country of Last Things – Paul Auster
Infinite Cage, The – Keith Laumer
Islandia – Austin Tappan Wright
King Davids Spaceship – Jerry Pournelle
Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
Lathe of Heaven, The – Ursula Le Guin
Life – Gwyneth Jones
Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
Light – M John Harrison
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen – H. Beam Piper
Lucifers Hammer – Niven & Pournelle
Mainspring – Jay Lake
Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link
Man Plus – Frederik Pohl
Man Who Folded Himself, The – David Gerrold
Many – Coloured Land, The – Julian May
Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
Menace from Earth, The – Robert Heinlein
Merchant Princes, The – Charles Stross
Metrophage – Richard Kadrey
Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
Mote in Gods Eye, The – Niven & Pournelle
New Space Opera, The – Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
Night Sky Mine – Melissa Scott
Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
Nova – Samuel R. Delany
Old Man's War – John Scalzi
Ophiuchi Hotline, The – John Varley
Overclocked – Doctorow, Cory
Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
Paradox Men, The – Charles Harness
Patron Saint of Plagues, The – Barth Anderson
Pillars of Eternity, The – Barrington J Bayley
Rediscovery Of Man, The – Smith, Cordwainer
Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C Clarke
Revelation Space – Alastair Reynolds
River of Gods – Ian McDonald
Road, The – Cormac McCarthy
Roadside Picnic – Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
Rynosseros – Dowling, Terry
Sandman, The; Volumes 1 to 10 – Neil Gaiman
Scanner Darkly, A – Philip K. Dick
Scar – China Mieville
Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time, The – Robert Silverberg
Shambleau – Moore, C. L.
Sheep Look Up, The – John Brunner
Shockwave Rider, The – John Brunner
Slan – A. E. VanVogt
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Somewhere East of Life – Brian W Aldiss
Son of Man – Robert Silverberg
Souls in the Great Machine – Sean McMullen
Spartan Planet – A Bertram Chandler
Space Merchants, The – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
Starfish – Peter Watts
Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
Steel Beach – John Varley
Still Life with Fascists – Jo Walton
Summer Isles, The – Ian R. MacLeod
Take Back Plenty – Colin Greenland
Tales From the White Hart – Arthur C Clarke
Tales of the Dying Earth – Jack Vance
Tangible Ghosts, Of (Ghost trilogy) – L E Modesitt Jnr.
Tarzan Alive – Philip Jose Farmer
The Changes: A Trilogy – Peter Dickinson
There and Back Again – Pat Murphy
Thirteen – Richard Morgan
Thorns – Robert Silverberg
Time of Changes, A – Robert Silverberg
Time Machine, The – H G Wells
Time Ships, The, Stephen Baxter
Timescape – Gregory Benford
Towing Jehovah – James Morrow
Triplanetary – E E Doc Smith
Viriconium – M. John Harrison
Warlord of the Air, The – Michael Moorcock
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
When Worlds Collide – Balmer and Wyle
White Bird Of Kinship Trilogy, The – Richard Cowper
Wild Cards – Martin, George R. R.
Wind From Nowhere, The – J G Ballard
Woman on the Edge of Time – Marge Piercy
Wrinkle in Time, A – Madeleine L'Engle
Year's Best Science Fiction, The – Gardner Dozois
An impressive piece of synthesis--and that's a pretty darn impressive roster when you see it printed out like that.
Nice job...
#61 - that was great work - thank goodness for computers - one of my favorite Heinlein's (see my note above) was Stranger in a Strange Land and I noticed that wasn't listed by anybody. I must admit that I thought I had read a lot of science fiction, but your list shows me just how much is out there and still nedds to be checked out (by me and others?). So many books, so little time and I just hope my glasses don't get broken!
Love the reference to a classic "Twilight Zone" episode...and the immortal Burgess Meredith. 65koalamomEdited: Aug 8, 2008, 9:50am
I was hoping someone would remember that. It just came into my head as I finished the post.
I used to work for HarperCollins as a customer service rep and Mr. Meredith called one Christmas looking for an audio book he had recorded because he wanted to give it to some friends. It was out of print but I think they were able to find some for him. I was a bit awestruck talking to a celebrity.
My highly provisional and volatile "Essential 25" list includes many already mentioned, so I've tried to touchstone only those that haven't been. These are mainly books that made an impression on me, either recently or in my distant youth, and I've excluded books that I consider fantasy. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne (though you could as well have Journey to the Centre of the Earth) The Chrysalids by John Wyndham First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells The Time Machine by H. G. Wells War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells The Happy Planet by Joan Clarke High Wizardry by Diane Duane (more SF than the first two) Kemlo and the Martian Ghosts by E. C. Eliott (almost the first SF I ever read) The Lotus Caves by John Christopher The White Mountains by John Christopher Dune by Frank Herbert The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle (though Ringworld is a close runner) The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Excession by Iain M. Banks Feersum Endjin by Iain M. Banks Hunter of Worlds by C. J. Cherryh The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve That's not to say that I wouldn't rate notable authors such as Silverberg, Philip K. Dick, Brian Stableford, Aldiss, L'Engle, et al., but single works in the same league didn't come to mind.
Be interesting to see how authors have fared. For example, while Frank Herbert is represented only by Dune, Silverberg and few others have more than one book.
What I love about Burgess Meredith was that he worked right up to the end--and he lived into his 90's, didn't he? A career that stretched from the first adaptation of "Of Mice & Men" to the Rocky films...that ain't half bad.
I envy you for getting a chance to say a few words to him. It must have been wild when you realized who you were talking to (his voice was pretty distinctive). 69genegAug 8, 2008, 10:36am
Let's not forget his stint as Vladimir in my favorite play (outside of Shakespeare and "Ärsenic and Old Lace"), "Waiting for Godot".
Cary Grant as Mortimer in "Arsenic" is one of the great comic performances... 71Jim53Aug 8, 2008, 11:39am
My favorite Meredith role was as the butt-kicking old super in Foul Play. A sentimental favorite from my first year of married life. For #61, just for completeness, Fool's Run is by Patricia McKillip, the only SF novel I know of by an author who usually sticks to fantasies. Fool's War is by Sarah Zettel and is a pretty interesting take on artificial intelligence. Apparently the touchstones weren't on at all when I entered my list. 72genegEdited: Aug 8, 2008, 11:41am
Cary Grant was truly one of the most versatile actors of all time. North by Northwest was a real thriller and he nailed that one, too. In his day an actor had to be a jack of all genres. 73iansalesEdited: Aug 8, 2008, 11:46am
Archibald Leach played Cary Grant, but he did play him really, really well. He did urbane ("North by Northwest"), urbane and slightly scatter-brained ("Bringing Up My Baby", "Monkey Business"), urbane and put-upon ("I Was A Male War Bride"), and urbane and a little sinister ("Suspicion"). Still, I'd sooner watch him than most modern-day actors. 76usnmm2Aug 8, 2008, 7:30pm
This message has been deleted by its author. 79jmgoldAug 8, 2008, 7:52pm
Oh damn, I forgot Feed by M.T. Anderson
I knew this list would bring some lurkers out -nice to see you folks. ;) 81rojseAug 8, 2008, 11:43pm
I updated my lists.
Multiple Favourites:
(10) Dune – Frank Herbert
(6) Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
(6) Forever War – Joe Haldeman
(5) Ubik – Philip K. Dick
(4) Book Of The New Sun – Gene Wolfe
(4) Canticle for Leibowitz, A – Walter M Miller Jr
(4) Case Of Conscience, A – James Blish
(4) Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion Fall of Hyperion) – Dan Simmons
(4) Mars Trilogy (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) – Kim Stanley Robinson
(4) Stars My Destination, The – Alfred Bester
(3) City – Clifford D Simak
(3) Fire Upon The Deep, A – Vernor Vinge
(3) Left Hand of Darkness, The – Ursula Le Guin
(3) Man in the High Castle, The – Philip K. Dick
(3) Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The – Robert A. Heinlein
(3) Mote in Gods Eye, The – Niven & Pournelle
(3) Neuromancer – William Gibson
(3) Out of the Silent Planet – CS Lewis
(3) Pavane – Keith Roberts
(5) Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
(3) Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
(3) Use Of Weapons – Iain M Banks
(2) 1984 – George Orwell
(2) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
(2) Accelerando – Charles Stross
(2) As She Climbed Across the Table – Jonathan Lethem
(2) Camp Concentration – Thomas M. Disch
(2) Consider Phlebas – Iain Banks
(2) Dahlgren – Samuel R. Delany
(2) Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham
(2) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
(2) Earth Abides, The – George R Stewart
(2) Excession – Iain Banks
(2) Fairyland – Paul McAuley
(2) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The – Douglas Adams
(2) Illustrated Man, The – Ray Bradbury
(2) King Davids Spaceship – Jerry Pournelle
(2) Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link
(2) Malevil – Robert Merle
(2) Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
(2) Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
(2) Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
(2) Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
(2) Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C Clarke
(2) Scanner Darkly, A – Philip K. Dick
(2) Scar – China Mieville
(2) Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
(2) Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
(2) Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
(2) Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
(2) Time Machine, The – H G Wells 82rojseAug 8, 2008, 11:44pm
Nominated Once:
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
All the Myriad Ways – Larry Niven
Altered Carbon – Morgan, Richard
An Oblique approach – Eric Flint
Ash: A Secret History – Mary Gentle
At the Earths Core – Edgar Rice Burroughs
At the Mountains of Madness – HP Lovecraft
Axiomatic – Egan, Greg
Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
Baroque Cycle, The – Neal Stephenson
Beach, On the – Nevil Shute
Beggars and Choosers – Nancy Kress
Beggars in Spain – Nancy Kress
Berserker – Fred Saberhagen
Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard – J.G. Ballard
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon – Frederik Pohl
Big Planet – Jack Vance
Blindsight – Peter Watts
Borders of Infinity – Lois McMaster Bujold
Brain Wave – Poul Anderson
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Bug Jack Barron – Norman Spinrad
Calcutta Chromosome, The – Amitav Ghosh
Callahan's Secret – Spider Robinson
Carlucci – Richard Paul Russo
Carnival – Elizabeth Bear
Cetaganda – Lois McMaster Bujold
Chekhov's Journey – Ian Watson
Chrysalids, The – John Wyndham
The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman
Circuit of Heaven – Dennis Danvers
Cities of the Red Night – William S. Burroughs
City and the Stars, The – Arthur C. Clarke
City of the Sun, The – Brian Stabelford
Citizen In Space – Robert Sheckley
Civil Campaign, A – Lois McMaster Bujold
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Coelestis – Paul Park
Cradle of Splendor – Patricia Anthony
Crescent City Rhapsody – Kathleen Ann Goonan
Cyberiad, The – Stanislaw Lem
Cyteen – CJ Cherryh
Dawn – Octavia Butler
Deathbird Stories – Harlan Ellison
Declare – Tim Powers
Deep Wizardry – Diane Duane
Demolished Man, The – Alfred Bester
Diplomatic Immunity – Lois McMaster Bujold
Dispossessed, The – Ursula LeGuin
Doomsday Book – Connie Willis
Dosadi Experiment, The – Frank Herbert
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom – Cory Doctorow
Dream Of Wessex, A – Christopher Priest
Dream Master, The – Roger Zelazny
Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
Earthsea Trilogy, The – Urusla K. LeGuin
Einstein Intersection, The – Samuel R. Delany
End of Mr Y, The – Scarlett Thomas
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Engine Summer – John Crowley
Eric John Stark Saga, The – Brackett, Leigh
Evolution – Stephen Baxter
Federation – H Beam Piper
Fantastic Voyage – Isaac Asimov
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Farnhams Freehold – Robert Heinlein
Fallen Dragon – Peter F. Hamilton
Feersum Endjin – Iain M. Banks
Fifth Head of Cerberus, The – Gene Wolfe
First Men in the Moon – H. G. Wells
Flatland: A romance of Many Dimensions – Edwin A. Abbott
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Fool's Run – ????
Fool's War – ????
Forerunner Foray – Andre Norton
The Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem
Foundation Trilogy – Issac Assimov
Futurological Congress, The – Stanislaw Lem
Gateway – Frederik Pohl
Godwhale, The – T.J. Bass
Going, Going, Gone – Jack Womack
Golden Apples of the Sun – Ray Bradbury
Golden Nineties, The – Lisa Mason
Good New Stuff, The – Gardner Dozois
Good News from Outer Space – John Kessell
Good Old Stuff, The – Gardner Dozois
Graveyard Game, The – Kage Baker
Gray Matters – William Hjortsberg
Graybeard – Brian W. Aldiss
Happy Planet, The – Joan Clarke
Hard SF Renaissance, The – David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
Helliconia trilogy – Brian Aldiss
High Crusade, The – Poul Anderson
High Wizardry – Diane Duane
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Phillip Pullman
Hugo Winners, The – Isaac Asimov
Hunter of Worlds – C. J. Cherryh
I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
I, Robot – Issac Asimov
Ilium – Dan Simmons
Ice people, The – Byrene Barj
In The Country of Last Things – Paul Auster
Infinite Cage, The – Keith Laumer
Instrumentality of Mankind, The – Cordwainer Smith
Iron Dragon's Daughter, The – Michael Swanwick
Islandia – Austin Tappan Wright
Kemlo and the Martian Ghosts – E. C. Eliott
Komarr – Lois McMaster Bujold
Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
Lathe of Heaven, The – Ursula Le Guin
Life – Gwyneth Jones
Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
Light – M John Harrison
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen – H. Beam Piper
Lyon's Pride – Anne McCaffrey
The Lotus Caves – John Christopher
Lucifers Hammer – Niven & Pournelle
Mainspring – Jay Lake
Man Plus – Frederik Pohl
Man Who Folded Himself, The – David Gerrold
Many – Coloured Land, The – Julian May
March Upcountry – David Weber
Memory – Bennet Joshua Davlin
Menace from Earth, The – Robert Heinlein
Merchant Princes, The – Charles Stross
Metrophage – Richard Kadrey
Mirror Dance – Lois McMaster Bujold
Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
Mortal Engines – Philip Reeve
Mr. Adam – Pat Frank
Naked Sun, The – Isaac Asimov
New Space Opera, The – Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
Night Sky Mine – Melissa Scott
Nova – Samuel R. Delany
October Country, The – Ray Bradbury
Old Man's War – John Scalzi
Ophiuchi Hotline, The – John Varley
Overclocked – Doctorow, Cory
Paradox Men, The – Charles Harness
Patron Saint of Plagues, The – Barth Anderson
Pillars of Eternity, The – Barrington J Bayley
Princess of Mars, A – Edgar Rice Burroughs
Rakehells of Heaven, The – John Boyd
Rediscovery Of Man, The – Smith, Cordwainer
Revelation Space – Alastair Reynolds
Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban
River of Gods – Ian McDonald
Road, The – Cormac McCarthy
Robots Have No Tails – Lewis Padgett
Roadside Picnic – Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
Rynosseros – Dowling, Terry
Sandman, The; Volumes 1 to 10 – Neil Gaiman
Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time, The – Robert Silverberg
Shambleau – Moore, C. L.
Sheep Look Up, The – John Brunner
Shockwave Rider, The – John Brunner
Slan – A. E. VanVogt
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Somewhere East of Life – Brian W Aldiss
Son of Man – Robert Silverberg
Songs of Distant Earth – Arthur C. Clarke
Souls in the Great Machine – Sean McMullen
Spartan Planet – A Bertram Chandler
Space Merchants, The – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
Starfish – Peter Watts
Startide Rising – David Brin
Steel Beach – John Varley
Still Life with Fascists – Jo Walton
Stories of Your Life – Ted Chiang
Summer Isles, The – Ian R. MacLeod
Take Back Plenty – Colin Greenland
Tales From the White Hart – Arthur C Clarke
Tales of the Dying Earth – Jack Vance
Tangible Ghosts, Of (Ghost trilogy) – L E Modesitt Jnr.
Tarzan Alive – Philip Jose Farmer
The Changes: A Trilogy – Peter Dickinson
There and Back Again – Pat Murphy
Thirteen – Richard Morgan
Thorns – Robert Silverberg
Time of Changes, A – Robert Silverberg
Time Ships, The, Stephen Baxter
Timescape – Gregory Benford
Towing Jehovah – James Morrow
Triplanetary – E E Doc Smith
Trouble and her Friends – Melissa Scott
Viriconium – M. John Harrison
Vor Game, The – Lois McMaster Bujold
War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
Warhound and the World's Pain, The – Michael Moorcock
Warlord of the Air, The – Michael Moorcock
Warrior's apprentice, The – Lois McMaster Bujold
Way Station – Clifford D. Simak
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
When Worlds Collide – Balmer and Wyle
When The Sleeper Wakes – H. G. Wells
White Bird Of Kinship Trilogy, The – Richard Cowper
White Light – Rudy Rucker
White Mountains, The – John Christopher
Wild Cards – Martin, George R. R.
Wind From Nowhere, The – J G Ballard
Woman on the Edge of Time – Marge Piercy
Word For World Is Forest, The – Ursula K. Le Guin
World Inside, The – Robert Silverberg
Wrinkle in Time, A – Madeleine L'Engle
Year's Best Science Fiction, The – Gardner Dozois
I’m not adding kingkama’s or richardderus’ suggestions because they haven’t culled theirs down to 25 entries or less. If I did include them, it would unfair on everyone who had to cut theirs down to 25. 84rojseAug 10, 2008, 2:54am
I'll only put up the multiple nominations next time, and save the rest on my email.
Not many recent books cited there--does contemporary SF turn you off?
He did point out that he stopped reading sf 20 years. It's spoiledfornothing's I find worrying - 9 of the 25 are Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series...
Cliff, last year I attended Readercon 18, which was my first con in 20 years. I was interested in some of the current authors and even picked up Kay Kenyon’s new book, Bright of the Sky. This year at Readercon 19 I attended some panels that focused on the best books and stories of 2007/2008. I have several lists and have already bought a number of recent and current novels and short story anthologies.
Of course I still look for books I have not read by authors I like, as well as authors who I have read about (including here). In fact I bought Transfinite: The Essential A. E. van Vogt published by NEFSA Press at the con, along with The Spacehounds of IPC by E. E. Smith and some Jules Verne titles published by Wesleyan University Press.
to #85
Some of the best stuff was written 20 years ago and some of yours are favs of mine, too.
But there's good things out there now as well - try Robert Silverburg. 91rojseEdited: Aug 11, 2008, 3:24am
#85, 90
I am definitely under-read on the new authors too, but there are some really good novelists working right now. If you start up a thread for suggestions on new books, you will get some great suggestions.
And it is nice to see those that don't post as often on here giving their ideas. It's nice to see new perspectives and ideas. 92andylAug 11, 2008, 4:08am
#87 On LucasTrask's list. It is interesting because so much of it is pre-60s, and most of it rooted in the Golden Age. Even stuff like Space Viking could be pre-60s (even though it was in the early 60s). Twenty years ago was 1988 - so a lot of 60s, 70s and 80s must have either been missed or not liked at all. As to spoiledfornothing's list - what is wrong with the other Vorkosigan series books? I was more intrigued by the writers I had not previously heard of. With research I found that Linnea Sinclair does Romance/SF crossovers (I guess a bit like Asaro but maybe even more Rom). Dexta seems to have a few fans but most others give it very poor reviews. The Shepherd seems to be part of a MilSF series involving a princess (of 100 worlds) who is a naval lieutenant. The review of Audacious I found summed it up with "This lighthearted book makes for a pleasant read while relaxing on a beach or in a hot tub"
I've read Dexta - the reviews made it sound much better than it actually was. It opens with a hamfisted pastiche of Jane Austen before turning into "gorgeous sex object strikes a blow for womankind among the stars by using gorgeous looks to get things done while all the men are staring at her tits". Even for mind-candy, there was too much wrong with it. I've also read Hidden Empire. One day, I'll work out why I even bothered finished. Anderson's prose is completely tone-deaf, and I struggled ot find a single original idea in the entire book. Catherine Asaro can at least write and tell a good story, although I found the romance quotient pitched way too high for me in the one novel of her Skolian Saga that I've read. 94rojseAug 11, 2008, 4:26am
Books with multiple votes:
(11) Dune – Frank Herbert
(8) Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
(7) Forever War – Joe Haldeman
(5) Canticle for Leibowitz, A – Walter M Miller Jr
(5) Mars Trilogy (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) – Kim Stanley Robinson
(5) Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
(5) Ubik – Philip K. Dick
(4) Book Of The New Sun – Gene Wolfe
(4) Case Of Conscience, A – James Blish
(4) Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham
(4) Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion Fall of Hyperion) – Dan Simmons
(4) Left Hand of Darkness, The – Ursula Le Guin
(4) Neuromancer – William Gibson
(4) Out of the Silent Planet – CS Lewis
(4) Stars My Destination, The – Alfred Bester
(3) 1984 – George Orwell
(3) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
(3) City – Clifford D Simak
(3) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
(3) Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
(3) Fire Upon The Deep, A – Vernor Vinge
(3) Foundation Trilogy – Issac Assimov
(3) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The – Douglas Adams
(3) Man in the High Castle, The – Philip K. Dick
(3) Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The – Robert A. Heinlein
(3) Mote in Gods Eye, The – Niven & Pournelle
(3) Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
(3) Pavane – Keith Roberts
(3) Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
(3) Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
(3) Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
(3) Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
(3) Time Machine, The – H G Wells
(3) Use Of Weapons – Iain M Banks
(2) 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
(2) Accelerando – Charles Stross
(2) As She Climbed Across the Table – Jonathan Lethem
(2) Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
(2) Camp Concentration – Thomas M. Disch
(2) Consider Phlebas – Iain Banks
(2) Dahlgren – Samuel R. Delany
(2) Earth Abides, The – George R Stewart
(2) Excession – Iain Banks
(2) Fairyland – Paul McAuley
(2) Federation – H Beam Piper
(2) Illustrated Man, The – Ray Bradbury
(2) King Davids Spaceship – Jerry Pournelle
(2) Mountains of Madness, At the – HP Lovecraft
(2) Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link
(2) Malevil – Robert Merle
(2) Many-Coloured Land, The – Julian May
(2) Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
(2) Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
(2) Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
(2) Princess of Mars, A – Edgar Rice Burroughs
(2) Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C Clarke
(2) Scanner Darkly, A – Philip K. Dick
(2) Scar – China Mieville
(2) Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
(2) War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
(2) When The Sleeper Wakes – H. G. Wells
(2) Wrinkle in Time, A – Madeleine L'Engle
Even this one is starting to get a bit long.
I won't put the books nominated once, the list is just starting to get too long.
I think we're experiencing a mini-Golden Age in SF--there are some terrific works kicking about and when I compare the novels I'm reading now to some of the so-called "classics", I'm deeply impressed with how the new stuff holds its own.
As much as I bitch about certain aspects of SF and fan-dumb, I don't think the genre has ever been in better shape. Now if only we could convince people like Robert Sawyer, Kevin Anderson and the militiary SF scribblers to take up street-sweeping or dog-catching, everything would be perfect...
I agree but I wouldn't call it a "mini" Golden Age any more. There've been too many really excellent writers for too many years now.
If there's a downside, it's that the best books in this Golden Age may not be as teen-friendly as Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, et al. were. Maybe that's why media-related titles are an entry for some now. 97arthurfraynEdited: Aug 12, 2008, 11:38pm
95>As much as I bitch about certain aspects of SF and fan-dumb, I don't think the genre has ever been in better shape. Now if only we could convince people like Robert Sawyer, Kevin Anderson and the militiary SF scribblers to take up street-sweeping or dog-catching, everything would be perfect...
You know, I've never been interested in Kevin Anderson and Timothy Zahn, or Robert Sawyer, it seems pretty obvious what one should expect from their books by the way they're marketed, but you and Ian Sales talk about these guys so very often, I think you've peaked my curiousity. You always keep 'em fresh on my mind -I don't think I could ever forget their names. You work better than any PR.
I think I'll go out and pick up $50 -100 dollars or so of their work to check it out. :)
Arthur, what a vicious thing to say in my presence (virtual or otherwise). $50 for those guys? Grrr. Go to the library instead or look for free on-line excerpts, which I'm sure are readily available.
You can't get their names out of your head? That's Sales' fault. From now on, their names shall never pass my fingertips...
...and, Chris, your point about the SF books today not being as teen-friendly is a good one. But the burgeoning YA market will hopefully translate into a generation of readers seeking increasingly complex and demanding work as they get older. From Scott Westerfeld to Stephen Baxter isn't THAT big a leap, is it?
I jest -it's likely I couldn't read the stuff, but Jeepers Cliff, isn't it obvious from how the books are marketed and look, what's going to be inside? Why'd you pick 'em up in the first place? Actually I do have a Robert Sawyer book which I think was up for a Nebula (or won, I don't remember) The Terminal Experiment, but the cover is so hideous, so "airport book kiosk", I just can't bring myself to consider reading it...
Arthur...
All together now, everyone:
"You can't judge a book by its cover!"
Isn't that adage: "you can't ALWAYS judge a book by it's cover? That's certainly true, but most of the time, I think you can. A lot of money goes into marketing books, and I think they get it right most of the time. The DaVinci Code reads like what it's cover looks like. Besides, I thought you just implied Robert Sawyer's books were stinkbombs... 103andylAug 11, 2008, 2:10pm
Stephen Baxter has done a YA book (The H-Bomb Girl) that was well received in the UK. He also wrote two of the shared-world Web Series which was YA. So he obviously believes in trying to catch 'em young as well as writing books with massive ideas for us older people.
andyl, I have read, and liked, a lot of 60s, 70s and 80s SF. But when it comes down to my top 25 they do not make the cut. I have only entered some of my books into LT to date, but if you look you will see I have a fair number of books published from the 60s-80s ands I still have more to add. Of course I stayed with my favorite authors as they wrote new books, but I generally liked them less then their older works. I also read a fair number of new authors and did like a number of them, but I also veered in fantasy and away from SF in the 70s and 80s.
As for preferring the Golden Age of SF, you are absolutely correct. I have no idea if it is because the authors I first read, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein and del Rey, but there is sometime about that era I really love. And it is not just SF books, but all entertainment from the 30s, 40s, and 50s: movies, serials, comic books, radio and even early TV (i.e., the BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment).
Maybe I've missed some - but who are the best latter day sci-fi writers? I am sure I have read some, but none stick out in my mind like the ones LucasTrask mentions. My nephew, David J. Sakmyster, is a new sci-fi author but too new to be considered a big favorite, except by those of us who know him - maybe someday, but not yet.
Good luck to David, may he be a writer of stature very soon.
I can leave most of the Golden Age guys behind and even a lot of the New Wavers leave me cold. But I can't seem to shake my affection for Philip K. Dick. There's something about that man's work that resonates with me. Perhaps because it's so unapologetically MAD...
iansales - hey, i love the vor series. one of my favorite comfort reads. I wish she hadn't stopped writing it. her fantasy stuff is good, but not as good as that. The Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake is also a favorite comfort read.
andl - it is true Linnea Sinclair and Catherine Asaro both have a fair bit of romance in their work. i never minded. lol
As for Dexta - I have reread that one enough to consider it a favorite, but I never finished the series so . . . I might one day, but right now, there is too much on my TBR list.
Audacious is a fun read. lol I am still making my way through the series and I go back to it every so often.
ChrisRiesbeck - they aren't teen freindly? hmm. i got into the vor series. not that i read those classic authors than - and this hasn't changed since i got into college - but i tried some of authors that are supposed to be classic a few years ago (the foundation series and the dune books) but i couldn't get into them. someone told me told me last year that 15 is too young to read the foundation books but i haven't tried older writers since my first couple disastrous attempts.
108andylAug 12, 2008, 3:47am
Certainly 15 isn't too young to tackle Foundation and Asimov. It is probably older than most of us were when we read Foundation. However Asimov is pretty dated now - he was writing for a 1940s/50s audience in Foundation. Also from your top-25 it seems you like books high on action and romance - neither are particularly Asmiov traits.
Asimov is a Golden Age writer, and they say the Golden Age of science fiction is thirteen... If you like Lois McMaster Bujold and her ilk, I wouldn't even bother trying Asimov. No one's saying you have to read him. And much of his fiction is pretty bad.
If SF had a Golden Age it was probably between the mid-60's and Star Wars. (As aside, I don't believe that George Lucas is to blame for the decline of civilisation, that's due to Adam Sandler).
The Golden Age of sf is generally taken to be the 1930s through to the 1950s - i.e., the period between the pulps and the New Wave.
But it's an earlier era, very primitive writing, so let's call that the "Bronze Age" and this new surge of good stuff "Golden". Next time around it will be "Platinum" and then...
If we keep on redefining "Golden Age", we'll never know where we are... 114genegAug 12, 2008, 10:53am
As I recall the "Golden Age" of television had a few stellar shows and a lot of absolute dreck. Two things are typical of "Golden Ages": they are the earliest manifestations of, and indeed point the way, for tropes that continue through the medium, and they tend to get shinier as the "Golden Ager" grows through and beyond their own golden age.
It's like R&R. Who here agrees with me that the golden age of rock and roll ended with the death of Buddy Holly in early 1959? Don't answer that! I am trying to make a point about the relativity of gold in them thar ages, not get us off topic.
One other aspect of golden ageism: the golden age tends to keep on slippin' into the future. Anyone here remember when the Golden Age of SF was EAPoe, Jules Verne, or ERBurroughs? They were golden ages, too, you know.
Yes, they were. But has there really been a "new" golden age since the 60s? 116genegAug 12, 2008, 11:01am
As with R&R I dropped out of SF in the late sixties. I am not qualified to answer that question, but to hear some of the pros here tell it, we may be in the next golden age right now. Another aspect of "Golden Ages" is they are always in the past. As the wise man said, "A prophet is without honor in his own land". One's own land is a space/time construct more than just space or time. 117CliffBurnsEdited: Aug 12, 2008, 11:10am
I agree, Golden Ages tend to be retrospectively assigned.
However, as a regular reader and fan of SF, I can't recall an era offering so many disparate voices, the quality of the writing far more literate and complex than the offerings of Heinlein, Asimov, et all. There are still problems, valid criticisms that can be fairly laid on the doorsteps of many writers in the field but the BEST of the last ten or fifteen years are very, very good indeed... 118tardisAug 12, 2008, 11:11am
>107 - Lois McMaster Bujold is writing a new Vor book now - apparently she read from the work in progress at Denvention.
(Re)defining the Golden Age: I like what iansales said - that the Golden Age of SF is 13. It's completely subjective. I would modify that to say that it is between the ages of 13 and 19. I have read many good SF/F books since then (and it has been a long time since then) but that was when I really got into SF/F and many of the books I read then are still among my favourites, even though they might not be the best written. That was the greatest age of wonder for me - discovering Asimov and Heinlein and Norton and Nourse and the rest, haunting used bookstores and libraries, discovering new authors (Hambly! Harrison! Tepper! Cherryh!) and finding like-minded people to discuss it all with (wipes the mist of nostalgia from eyes and goes back to work...) 119genegAug 12, 2008, 11:14am
See, that's why I'm not a writer. Ian said perfectly in one short sentence what I have been unable to say in two full length posts.
And like all the best writers, I pinched the sentence from someone else - someone called Peter Graham, apparently...
Defining 'golder age' aside, I think there are probably at least as many skilled, entertaining, and intelligent writers of science fiction today as back in the days of (fill in your definition of golden age writers). The problem today is twofold in my opinion. First, the field is no longer in the process of being defined. Barnes and Nobles, et al. have sections dedicated to the genre and there's even a sci-fi television channel. This latter fact raises my second point. Mixed in, and perhaps drowning out, what excellent writing there is out there is a barrage of crap. Unless you know what you're looking at, the sci-fi aisle at the bookstore is a crapshoot. Perhaps that was true back in the day as well.
Sturgeon's Law applies, regardless of the era or article in question...
andyl - yeah i like lots of adventure in my stories. romance doesn't hurt, either. lol
iansales - i know i didn't have to read him - thank god! - but i tried him out to see what all the fuss was about. :) and 13, really? i was still mostly reading YA and children's fiction than. well, ya, i think the only children's fiction i was still reading back than was nancy drew and i grew bored with her before the year was out.
tardis - thanks, i didn't know that 124andylAug 12, 2008, 5:42pm
A lot of SF fans start reading adult-SF from about 10-12. I certainly did. Started with Heinlein and Asimov but at 3 books a week (not all adult SF I hasten to add) from the library I had soon moved on to other writers.
you all must have had different libraries - i couldn't get into the adult stuff until i got my adult library card at 13. but my parents wouldn't let me take out books they thought were too adult for me. it took me months to persuade them to let me take out whatever i wanted. 126tardisAug 12, 2008, 6:29pm
I started probably at age 9 or 10 on the juvenile SF in my school library - Alexander Key, Alan E. Nourse, Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, etc. They didn't have a lot but I read it all. Our public library had some too, and I went through all of that. I don't recall when I started on the adult SF, but it was pretty early. My parents didn't stop me reading anything.
Most of my YA/Children's sci-fi (and other genre) came in my adult years after I took a course on YA lit. I am tryng to make up for lost time.
And I have found that just because it's a children's or YA's book doesn't mean you can have it finished in an hour or two!
coolsnak3 ... excellent choices! I didn't rely on a library for my early reading. I started by reading a friend's books then went right to the local bookstore. When I was a kid you could pick up a stack of paperbacks for under $20, which my parents were generous enough (and glad I think) to forward me. I'm not sure what my first SF was, as I started with Tolkein, but Heinlein and Asimov were among the first. 130rojseAug 13, 2008, 2:26am
#127
Those are pretty good books there (even if I cannot fully appreciate two of them), but you don't have any others you appreciate?
If not, perhaps there are one or two suggestions made here that might increase your favourites list. 131andylAug 13, 2008, 4:37am
Just as Tardis said. My parents didn't stop me reading anything.
Also I grew up in a small town of around 2000 people. The town did have a library but it didn't have a great selection. Virtually every other week I filled out one of the inter-library loan slips (ILL was free) as I discovered other titles. In those days most books had one or two pages at the end listing other books by this publisher. 132andylAug 14, 2008, 11:55am
Cheryl Morgan has a blog entry detailing a panel she moderated at Devention where the panelists pick their 20 essential books of the last 20 years. Interesting to see some of the crossover with our lists albeit we were doing all-time greats - some of which we may not class as essential.
You guys were lucky in your parents. lol and yes, i also used the inter library loan. still do. ;)
132>Interesting to see some of the crossover with our lists albeit we were doing all-time greats - some of which we may not class as essential. Thanks for posting-interesting yes. They're more contemporary oriented lists than what we have here in general. I see no "classics" on any of those lists. The big intersection between all the folks there, and here, is the Hyperion books, and Accelerando, it seems.
What I thought was interesting was that though the lists differed, it was the same writers appearing again and again.
136andylAug 14, 2008, 2:46pm
There is a bit more than that. We both have the Mars books by KSR on our lists quite a lot.
Taking out the pre-87 books from rojse's summary in msg 94 we get the following list. The first number before the slash is how many of us suggested it. The second number in {} is the number of panelists who suggested it (max of 5)
(5){3} Mars Trilogy (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) – Kim Stanley Robinson
(5){2} Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
(4){all 5 mention one of the Hyperion books} Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion Fall of Hyperion) – Dan Simmons
(3){1} Fire Upon The Deep, A – Vernor Vinge
(3){1+} Use Of Weapons – Iain M Banks
(2){1} Accelerando – Charles Stross
(2){0} As She Climbed Across the Table – Jonathan Lethem
(2){+} Consider Phlebas – Iain Banks
(2){1+} Excession – Iain Banks
(2){3} Fairyland – Paul McAuley
(2){1} Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link
(2){1} Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
(2){1} Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
(2){0} Scar – China Mieville
The + means the entire Culture series was mentioned.
Which I think is a good match considering we were doing all time bests and not emblematic books of the last 20 years.
(1){2} Evolution- Stephen Baxter
(1){1} Cloud Atlas- David Mitchell
These matched up with some of the singletons on our list. I didn't check them all though.
Did we end up with any Sheri Tepper on our list at all?
#139- Ahhh.... rojse left that list out because it was longer than 25 books. Understandable. Thanks for the blog link. It was an interesting comparison. Sheri Tepper was the author that jumped out at me, being mentioned by several of them but not many of us. 141rojseAug 15, 2008, 7:35pm
#136
Should I be combining the Culture novels together or not, even though some people mentioned two different books in the same list?
Here is my personal desert island list, sf books that have been meaningful to me over the years that I would happily reread: 1. Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Samuel R. Delany 2. Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin 3. Out of the Everywhere, James Tiptree Jr (story collection) 4. Dune, Frank Herbert 5. Dreamsnake, Vonda McIntyre 6. The Unlimited Dream Company, J.G. Ballard 7. The Mars trilogy (Red/Green/Blue), Kim Stanley Robinson 8. Virtual Light, William Gibson 9. Fairyland, Paul J. McAuley 10. On Her Majesty's Occult Service, Charles Stross ("The Laundry" omnibus) 11. Learning the World, Ken MacLeod 12. The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson 13. Ubik, Philip K. Dick 14. The Heritage of Hastur, Marion Zimmer Bradley 15. Ringworld, Larry Niven 16. Gateway, Frederik Pohl 17. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke 18. Cities of the Red Night, William S. Burroughs 19. Teranesia, Greg Egan 20. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein 21. The Harper Hall trilogy ( Dragonsinger, etc.), Anne McCaffrey 22. A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge 23. Frek and the Elixer, Rudy Rucker 24. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury 25. The Dancers at the End of Time books, Michael Moorcock 143koalamomEdited: Aug 16, 2008, 9:28am
That sounds like a good list. I could wile away the hours with many of those. I'd just take my box of Heinlein's andf the other box of early McCaffrey's Pern (lately I've gotten them out of the library) add a little Marion Zimmer Bradley with a touch of Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant and Robert Silverburg and maybe a few mysteries/crime novels to shake things up a little and I'd be good. 144genegAug 16, 2008, 1:10pm
Disclaimer !! This post is off topic! Koalamom, to get us off topic just momentarily, but for someone who likes their mystery/crime novels with a gentle SF or fantastical or magical twist, try the Preston Child novels, especially those with that wonderful FBI agent, Aloysius Pendergast. The RelicReliquaryThe Cabinet of CuriositiesStill Life with Crows and several others including a trilogy with Aloysius and his multi massively serial killer brother, Diogenes. If you've not tried them, you should. Disclaimer !! This post is off topic!
I appreciate this. I have a "I Want to Read this" site and I'll add this name to it.
Maybe I've found another fav author? 146arthurfraynEdited: Aug 19, 2008, 11:16am
You would think I would know never to assume a novel will turn out to be great before I've finished it. You would think. Apparently I can still rise to the bait. I just finished The Sheep Look Up and it ain't on my list of 25 essentials. I'll say of Brunner in general -he has a real problem with ending novels successfully and this novel, alas, is no exception. The trial of Austin Train at the end of this book is a truly fatuous business. Brunner luhhvs to attack them straw men. And the novel just kind of crumbles after that. Thematically appropriate, perhaps, but ultimately unsatisfying. I had just finished Squares of the City prior to this, of which I felt the same- a fascinating ride with a ridiculous ending. Oh well. So I'll get to The Jagged Orbit-whenever. Enough qualified disappointment for a while... I've enjoyed the run of books I've read by him this year, serious shortcomings notwithstanding, and I'd recommend The Whole Man to anyone who has never read anything by Brunner. #25 on my list I've decided upon consideration, is Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick.
I'm taking The Book of the New Sun off my list after the recent group read. I no longer like it as much as I did or thought I still would. See here. Now I have to think of another title for the list... 150ArkadySep 24, 2008, 9:17am
These are great lists!
I wanted to make a list of books for people to get me for Christmas and you guys just made that so easy for me!
I don't know whose idea this was, but thanks! 151andylSep 24, 2008, 9:59am
#150
Note not every book mentioned above is great (although all mine are :->) or to everyone's tastes. I think we have also all approached the lists from slightly different angles - for example I tried to cover a large span of time as well as pick great books.
However having said that if you pick the ones that get mentioned a lot I don't think you will be too disappointed. If you are looking for a particular type of book let us know and we can pick out the ones on the list that match most closely. 152andylSep 24, 2008, 10:01am
#149 Stefano Benni? Never read it but the fact that most of the rest of your list is pretty good I'll have to consider it.
>152
well, thank you very much. i might have to add, that this is by no means anywhere near hard sf. benni is a famous italian author, who often writes rather surreal fiction, but who is always funny and entertaining.
probably owes much to the "hitchhiker's guide..." (it came out in 1983) too...
This message has been flagged by multiple users and is no longer displayed ( show) Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov.
The Map of the Universe, George Arnold Hall (georgearnoldhall.ca)
Gee, I've never heard of the second one on your list.
Necroposting to tout one's own work next to some great big names, tssssk.
I was wondering why this got resurrected!
Hm, I wasn't reading this group back in 2008, so thanks for bringing the thread back even if it was done for the "wrong reasons." Here's my list of twenty, alpha by author (not ranked internally). I made it a rule not to duplicate any one author, so as to promote variety in my list. 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, Asimov (ed.) Chessmen of Mars, Burroughs Childhood's End, Clarke Dhalgren, Delaney Ubik, Dick Transmetropolitan: Lonely City, Ellis Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein (note: first edition, not "uncut" reversion to AMS text) Dune, Herbert Fourth Mansions, Lafferty The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin Etidorhpa, Lloyd At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft The Pleasure Tube, Onopa Rant, Palahniuk The Prestige, Priest Venus Plus X, Sturgeon Tales of the Dying Earth, Vance Book of the New Sun, Wolfe We, Zamiatin Lord of Light, Zelazny I really haven't done a good job of keeping up with the genre, and I'm sure there are newer books I'd list if only I had read them. Among recent writers, I'm interested in the work of Charles Stross and also Ian Macdonald, but my TBR pile is deep and wide. I only get to a science fiction book once every month or two. This last month it was Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, which was great--but not recent. ETA: Wow, all those touchstones worked!
thanks folks!... im looking to get back into reading some sf but dont have time to wade through a bunch of junk. haven't read much of anything in sf for ~15 years and honestly don't know who the new/hot names are. it's cool to see some of the stuff I read awhile ago is still thought fairly highly of. For the moment, Ive just skimmed the thread, but didn't notice Ender's game mentioned (maybe I missed it?).. that would be on my list, and I would also include Stranger in a strange land which has been mentioned. Join to post |  4,749 members 34,490 messages You must be a member of this group to post.  AboutThis topic is not marked as primarily about any work, author or other topic. TouchstonesWorks- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
- Starfish by Peter Watts
- Carlucci by Richard Paul Russo
- Viriconium by M. John Harrison
- The Scar by China Miéville
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
- Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
- Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
- Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
- The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
- Evolution by Stephen Baxter
- Engine Summer by John Crowley
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland
- Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
- Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard
- The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
- Somewhere East of Life by Brian Aldiss
- A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Metrophage by Richard Kadrey
- Celestis by Paul Park
- A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
- A Case of Conscience by James Blish
- The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley
- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
- Ash : A Secret History by Mary Gentle
- Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley
- Chekhov's Journey by Ian Watson
- Pavane by Keith Roberts
- A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg
- Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe
- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
- City by Clifford D. Simak
- The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl
- Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
- Big Planet by Jack Vance
- Ubik by Philip K. Dick
- Roadside Picnic by Arkadi Strugatsky
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
- A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest
- Timescape by Gregory Benford
- The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
- Declare by Tim Powers
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
- Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Triplanetary by E. E. "Doc" Smith
- The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem
- The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein
- Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke
- Federation by H. Beam Piper
- All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time by Robert Silverberg
- When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie
- Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
- Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
- Malevil by Robert Merle
- Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven
- The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
- Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
- The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
- Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
- King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle
- The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven
- Spartan Planet by A. Bertram Chandler
- City of the Sun: A Novel by David Levien
- The Patron Saint of Plagues by Barth Anderson
- Cradle of Splendor by Patricia Anthony
- The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker
- Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
- Heartsease by Peter Dickinson
- Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane
- The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
- Crescent City Rhapsody by Kathleen Ann Goonan
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
- Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
- As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem
- Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
- The Golden Nineties by Lisa Mason
- Souls In The Great Machine by Sean Mcmullen
- Of Tangible Ghosts by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
- The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Night Sky Mine by Melissa Scott
- Going, Going, Gone by Jack Womack
- Finder by Emma Bull
- Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
- Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
- Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
- Solaris by Stanisław Lem
- Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
- Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
- The Godwhale by T.J. Bass
- The Infinite Cage by Keith Laumer
- More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
- Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
- Thorns by Robert Silverberg
- Son of a Wanted Man by Louis L'Amour
- At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
- The Paradox Men by Charles L. Harness
- The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick
- Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer
- Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
- The Rod of Light by Barrington J. Bayley
- The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
- The Nitrogen Fix by Hal Clement
- Krono by Charles L. Harness
- Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott
- The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
- The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
- Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
- The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted by Harry Harrison
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Gateway by Frederik Pohl
- Man Plus by Frederik Pohl
- Last and First Men and Last Men in London by Olaf Stapledon
- The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
- Endymion by Dan Simmons
- Forerunner Foray by Andre Norton
- Ilium by Dan Simmons
- River of Gods by Ian McDonald
- The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod
- The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
- Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper
- Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
- The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
- The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock
- Mainspring by Jay Lake
- Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
- Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright
- The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
- The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
- Whiteout by Sage Walker
- Queen & Country, Vol. 1: Operation Broken Ground by Greg Rucka
- The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist: A Book for Writers, Teachers, Publishers, and Anyone Else Devoted to Fiction by Thomas McCormack
- A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
- Air by Geoff Ryman
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- Aztec Century by Christopher Evans
- Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Camouflage by Joe Haldeman
- Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- Cyteen III : The Vindication by C. J. Cherryh
- Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
- Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
- End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
- Excession by Iain M. Banks
- Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks
- Felaheen by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
- Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
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- Stranger in a Strange Land: The Original Uncut Version by Robert A. Heinlein
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